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On 4 November 2009, David Cameron made a speech in which he explained that, following the Czech ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the Conservatives could no longer hold a retrospective referendum on it.

He went on to promise a major renegotiation of our EU membership terms, not least in the field of criminal justice. This is what he had to say on the subject:
“The third area where we will negotiate for a return of powers is criminal justice.

We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll struggle to visualise £1.7 billion – the sum Eurocrats are demanding in a backdated surcharge because Britain’s economy is doing better than expected. To put it in context, £1.7 billion would allow us to hire an extra 60,000 nurses and fund their pensions. It’s more than is raised by the bank levy. It represents an extra £65 a year for every family in the direct payments they make to Brussels – on top of the £525 they are already paying.

I say “direct payments” because we are paying far more indirectly, through higher food bills (to subsidise the… Read More

How can we explain British students who refuse to commemorate the Holocaust because that would be ‘eurocentric’, refuse to condemn ISIS because that would encourage ‘Islamophobia’ and refuse to support the Kurds on the grounds that it would be ‘warmongering’?

Part of the explanation is this: a ‘new paradigm of progressive thought’ is dominant on the left, and the left is dominant on campus, whether behind the lectern or in front of it.

The phrase is Joshua Muravchik’s, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Josh explained the tectonic shift to me recently when we sat for an in-depth interview for Fathom.
After a century or so, the paradigm which… Read More

A busy morning at the office today: I saw three new puppies, one new kitten, and I euthanased two dogs. The morning's work was a classic example of the ups and downs of my job.

Dealing with death is a daily drama for vets. As well as witnessing the death of seriously ill and injured animals in my care, I have to euthanase pets, at an average two every week, or 100 per year. A typical human GP experiences the death of around twenty patients annually: vets' numbers are boosted by the fact that animals live shorter lives (so the turnover of our patients is much higher).

With Isil fighters continuing their relentless assault on the Kurdish-held town of Kobane on Syria's border with Turkey, questions are inevitably being asked about Ankara's true intentions in this increasingly complex conflict.

The dominant image of today's coverage of the fighting is of Turkish battle tanks massed on the border ready to repel any attempt by Isil to infringe Turkish territory. The seriousness of the situation is underlined by the fact that any attempt by Isil to attack Turkish positions could trigger an article five response by Nato, which obliges all the other nations in the 28- state alliance – including Britain – to defend any member that finds itself coming under attack. Indeed, Nato planning officers say measures are already… Read More

This morning's Telegraph carries the story of the calender containing pictures of "Britain's dullest men". The Dull Men's Club has more than 5,000 male members, who are passionate about everyday mundane things, which others think are dull. This reminded us of question we put to you a couple of weeks ago. Please enter the poll below and leave us a comment…

anorak

Pronunciation: /ˈanərak

noun

1 A waterproof jacket, typically with a hood, of a kind originally used in polar regions.

2 British informal, derogatory A studious or obsessive person with unfashionable and largely solitary interests: 'with his thick specs, shabby shoes, and grey suit, he looks a bit of an… Read More

Hat-tip to the Mirror's Martin Belam here. At 11.41pm on Thursday night – with the Scottish referendum count in full swing, and with the broadcasters talking about nothing else, and all the newspapers' main editions long since gone to bed – the Liberal Democrats have put a story out (I originally wrote that it was a "press release", but that's an independent site: still, the party has let it be known somehow). Mike Hancock, the Lib Dem MP who apologised for "inappropriate" and "degrading" behaviour after allegations that he sexually harassed a constituent, has quit the… Read More

It's actually very easy to predict the weather. You can look out of the window, see what the weather is doing, and say "tomorrow will be like today". In much of the world – southern California, the Mediterranean – that will be pretty reliable. It's called the "persistence method" and works fairly well in places where the weather only changes slowly throughout the year.

The persistence method is significantly less useful in places like Britain, though, where we have a great landmass on one side and a huge ocean on the other, and two major convection systems – the Gulf Stream… Read More

Those who like their political battles black and white, ideally featuring evil posh people on one side and sad-eyed paupers on the other, will be feeling pretty gleeful this morning. For it looks like a war is brewing between Alan Milburn, former Labour minister and now Chairman of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, and the private-school industry.

Following the publication of a Milburn-commissioned report on the stubborn elitism of Britain's top professions, in which Mr Milburn proposes that firms should take measures that would give the state-school educated as good a chance of employment as the privately educated, the representatives of private… Read More